On Sunday 18 November Miriam Harel spoke about the effect of years of violence on children and parents from both Jewish and Palestinian families. Miriam works in a Tel Aviv clinic and has recently published a book about her experiences. Below follows a report of what was a quite fascinating meeting...
In the first part of her talk Miriam Harel spoke about her book “Patchwork“, in which she described how she evolved her own approach to treating young children who had problems in the context of their families. This work started during the golden age of the 60’s and 70’s when there was plenty of funding, especially in the Kibbutz movement, to develop new techniques.
Later on the funding dried up, and during the time of the Intifadas and the wars between Israel and her Arab neighbours, there was a great deal of trauma and fear. This had a dramatic impact on young children and their families. Miriam then took the audience through several interesting case studies from her book.
The second part of Miriam’s talk was about Kibbutz today and the drastic changes brought about by the economic crisis which hit the Kibbutzim after the Likud came to power in 1977. Miriam described the three types of Kibbutzim today, and talked about her own Kibbutz Ha-Ogen, and how it changed without the members being able to stop harmful external developments. Today there are almost no communal facilities left and this has strongly effected retired veterans of the Kibbutz. At the same time many new businesses have been set up privately, including something resembling a massage parlour!
Miriam's husband, Simon, contributed to discussions arising out the second part of Miriam's talk. Meretz UK wishes to thank both of them for a moving and enlightening presentation, one that certainly gave our audience plenty of food for thought.